The Owners Club seems to be the old established club with manufacturer links and a quite poor website, the Owners Association seems to be the new kid on the block with a better website and on-line forums, which is where we have all migrated from.

I would quite like to join one of the clubs, but before I shell out my hard earned cash I would like to know what *experience of them people on here have, and any pointers towards the best choice.

I've not joined either one but I'd say your evaluation of both clubs is very accurate. I've not read either of mags that both clubs publish on a regular basis. I guess it depends on what you're looking for in a club. One seems kinda stuffy, the other seems much less formal but with better internet sites. I'd try to get a look at the club mags before deciding on which one to join.

Dont join the MBOA. *Their discount insurance is expensive, their magazine is pretentious pap. If it wasn't for the help we got from Andy on the online forum there wouldn't be anything useful at all. I joined for technical help, which I could have got without paying my £30, and for the trips away. As I have said - they did not organise the Le-mans trip, nor did my membership of the MBOA get me to Le-mans any cheaper than a non-member.
I used to be in the Skoda owners club ( honest! ) - and their newsletter was badly photocopied on A4 cheap paper, but it was absolutely superb - full of technical details ! (Unlike the MBOA's )
Wait a few weeks I shall report back on my impending membership of the MBOC.
With regards to the forums though, I gotta say (IMO) that the self-congratulation of managing to steal all the members from the MBOA is going a bit far and is forgetting what help Andy has given us. OK I agree with Kool's gripe about pics but I'm not enough of a smart-**** to say I get nothing out of the other forums. Andy's advice has been invaluable to me and unless we get a regular mercedes servicing guy on here like Andy, this forum is of limited interest to me. *All I want to know is how to change a steering idler arm myself to save the £60 labour, and I ain't going to join the max power plastic spoiler boy racer brigade. I'm afraid my rugby social life sucks up most of my cash, and my (nicely) completely standard Merc is just a means of getting to the next pint, so I'm going to carry on in the MBOA's forum as long as I get help there.

I echo what Steve has said, and add that in my experience, owners club magazines are usually not up to much, the best read i have found so far in relation to our particular marque, appears to be the Mercedes Enthusiast magazine.

I cant remember &nbsp;who it was, but someone posted on the mboa, what the Mercedes benz owners club had organised over the recent bank holiday, comparing it to what HADN'T been organised by the mboa.

We recently had a GTG in the Cotswolds, mainly organised i think by Maff/Koolvin, (hope i've got that right, if not sorry), it was a great event well supported, and therte is certainly big enthusiasm towards future events, with numerous members offering to organise events, myself included.

So that in a nutshell is what the opposition has to offer, this site will be celebrating its 1 week anniversary over the weekend, so as you can see, things are moving fast over here!

Hope this is of some use. <img src="http://www.mbclub.co.uk/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>

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